TDS 500~700 base designs

TDS 500~700 series uses common base design depending on when is the time range the model is produced, so the model number itself doesn’t tell you much about commonalities. For example, TDS 520 is common with 540, 620, 640 because they are all the first generation produced by SONY. Their main PCBs assemblies are significantly different from later ones like TDS 540A (Note the ‘A’). They don’t even use NVRAM chips with the same pin-out.

Yet TDS 540B is very different from 540A as it has InstaVu and no SMD aluminum electrolytic capacitors. It’s another generation. Yet even more confusing is that ‘A’ and ‘B’ does not represent different generations across the board. It only ties to the generation associated with the base model number. For example, TDS 500B, 600B and 700A has the same basis (and therefore the same service manual).

So far, service manual is the sure-fire way to tell what models shares the same design. They only removed a few components and ID resistors to make a lower-end version for market differentiation. The prices are no longer consistent in the used market, so sometimes it might be possible just to takes parts from a higher end unit and downgrade it with resistor ID for repairs. TDS boards is ‘adjusted’ before they ship, and has more mechanisms (like bandwidth-limiting resistors), so a lot more work is involved if you want to move up. I heard from forums that if you try to turn a monochrome processor board into color processor board, you’ll have to install extra chips and components.